Untitled 6/21/2014 – Mom Decisions

I made a choice last night, to be brutally honest, and stand up for my 5 year old daughter, Claire.

In 2009 I left her father, CF, about a month before she turned a year old.  I’ve written about it extensively in my zine when the crash meets something solid and it’s also come up in some of the pieces on this blog and http://www.wtcmss.wordpress.com (specifically in the creative non-fiction piece “Mother is the Water of the World.”  So, this won’t be the most detailed thing I’ve ever written about it.

Anyways, since my Order for Protection expired against CF in late 2012, I have worked very hard to be kind and civil.  I have encouraged his relationship with Claire, even though that has consisted of 1 hour long visit at Cupcake in Mpls and a smattering of phone calls.  He has seen his child once since September of 2010.

He is court-ordered to pay $53 a month in child support.  I long ago made peace with the fact that his payments will always be as late as they legally can be, and the bare minimum.  The past 2 months in a row, he’s offered to send extra money, and then not.  No mention of his offer, no explanation, just not followed through.

When I confronted him about this, his response was along the lines of “how dare you be so petty and try to instigate negativity” etc etc.

It took me a while to find the words for why the child support thing had suddenly started bothering me – it was an excuse.  A way for me to avoid the real issue.

For over a year, CF has been talking about getting a car and coming up to visit Claire, or have her spend weekends at the home he shares with his partner (FR) and their 18 month old (?) daughter.  I’ve always acted supportive of this plan, because I knew it wasn’t going to come to fruition.  Neither one of them work, and scrape by on FR’s disability payments.  I think CF has given me about 10 different “FOR SURE” dates he would have a car and come to see Claire.

I don’t want him around Claire.  That’s the real problem.  That’s the root issue.  CF is a narcissistic sociopath.  One of the last times we talked on the phone, he launched into this huge story about how he had gone to Walmart to buy a television, which turned out to be out of stock.  He bragged about how “by the time he was through with those clowns” he had gotten the floor model at a huge discount, and a $300 gift card to compensate him for his trouble.  He then told me about a defective microwave he had purchased on a recent Walmart shopping binge (the day he told me this story, his May child support payment was 3 days late already), and how he had plans to return it to one of the “classier” Walmarts out in the suburbs and try to get a similar result.

There are a million other things like that I could type here, a thousand anecdotes of his self-centered, materialistic nastiness I could repeat, but I won’t.  I don’t want my daughter learning what he has to teach.  My partner, Jake, and I do our best to teach Claire and Jorah to operate with an open and loving heart in everything they do.

And I had to tell CF why I don’t want him around Claire.  Because I worry about not only her physical safety with him (I am somewhat skeptical of his recent claims of sobriety, and I know FR has a son she no longer has custody of), and what he’ll teach her on a basic moral and human level.

If he was a super involved dad and I happened to disagree with his political or religious views, that would be one thing.  But he’s not.  He’s seen his child once since 2010.  And he always has an excuse.  I can’t imagine not seeing either one of my children for that long.  It would drive me insane.  I do feel bad for him, but I don’t trust him.  And I would never leave either one of my children in the care of a person I didn’t trust.

I can’t do it just to be “nice” and “give him a chance.”  Not when it feels wrong all the way deep down into my guts.  I have to listen to that.

 

Post Mommy-Baby Yoga Bliss

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Untitled: 6/19/2014

So, somehow things have just fallen into place so neatly.  AP and I are teaching, between the two of us, 6 classes a week (3 each) at Rail River Folk School – which is just an amazing space that will draw people to our classes that otherwise might not come to yoga.  I’m doing my karma yoga right now, and donating everything above the cost of rent to the Family Crisis Center in Bagley, MN.

It’s strange because a part of me wasn’t ready to actually do the things that I have talked about wanting to do for so long.  It was more comfortable to be “working towards doing” than actually “doing.”  The amount of support from the community here is pretty amazing, too.  It’s not something that I’m used to.  I guess that part of my idea of myself has always included the archetype of the nomad or the outcast.  I’ve never felt like I belonged to or was accepted by the community I lived in.  The flip side of that was that I always felt like I could leave – something I never really took advantage of in my 20’s.

It’s interesting to feel like I am putting down roots, like I am part of a community.  In a way, the growth is uncomfortable – the way extremities ache and burn when they recover from frostbite.

I picked up an extra shift at the Co-op last week and this week, and it’s really made me feel run-down and depleted.  2 days of customer service/cashiering is really all I can handle in a 7 day period.  I feel so fortunate to have my job, because I do enjoy working at the Co-op, most of my co-workers are great, and it’s a big part of my yoga practice off the mat – I try to be genuinely kind and loving to everyone who comes through my line, and just operate with an open heart.

It is, of course, an on-going PRACTICE and I totally fall short of that sometimes.

My 15 week old son, Jorah, went overnight from nursing at the breast once or twice a day and drinking mostly bottles of pumped milk to suddenly almost exclusively nursing at the breast.  It’s been maybe 2 weeks since he made the switch.

It is a pretty amazing experience for me – I had to pump and bottlefeed exclusively with Claire, and my milk supply dried up by the time she was 6 months old.  With my inverted nipples, I never really thought I’d be able to nurse my children on the breast, so I’m pretty thrilled.

And man, it is so much easier.  To only have to pump at work instead of at regular intervals.  To always have it there and ready.  I mean, it presents a different set of challenges, but I feel so blessed.  And it really did happen overnight – one day, bottle, next day, breast.  And now he even refuses the nipple shield, which I am also thrilled about.

I bought a Gaiam “Dandelion Days” yoga mat as a belated Mothers’ Day gift to myself.  I picked it because it was mostly pink, a happy colour, and the stylized dandelions make me think of being a kid and that kind of magical summer time type feeling I used to get.  And hope (not to be cheesy, but, well . . . ).

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